Ruby

“I kissed her like she was the only tether which held me in place on this lonely planet and I knew that was the truth of it. She had become my only reason to continue on. All I’d ever known and loved was lost to me but this broken, grieving soul was a mirror of my own. I was the reflection of their pain inside and out. We were wrong for each other in every way but the fit of her lips against my own couldn’t have been more perfect. Her kiss lit me up and cast the shadows away from my soul, her light burning through me and awakening the darkest desires of my heart.
I had been fighting it until that kiss. I didn’t want to need her they way I did; I didn’t want to hunger for her like a starving creature in her absence, but that kiss was all I needed to prove to me that I was already lost to the spell of her and there would be no breaking it.
I was hers.”
― Caroline Peckham; Susanne Valenti, Cinder Vale

“I ask permission of one person on the Continent, and it sure as Amari isn’t you.” Xaden slowly turns his head to look down the table at Halden, and breathing becomes irritatingly difficult.
“I speak in my father’s stead,” Halden bites out through gritted teeth.
“Right. Because he’s the one I defer to.” Xaden’s gaze swings to me. “When would you like to go?”
― Rebecca Yarros, Onyx Storm

“I would never hurt you like that. Even if I wanted to. Even if you begged me to. Even if you cheated on me. Even if you killed me. Protecting you is a compulsion at this point. I’d stop the night from falling if darkness scares you, Lila.”
― L.J. Shen, Bad Bishop

“We live by the Codex-
I live by you. When have I ever given a fuck about the Codex or the Code of Conduct? I am yours and you are mine, and there's no law or rule in this world or the next that will change that.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Onyx Storm